(FB 1544760019 Timestamp) THE IRRELEVANCE OF DOGMAS, AND THE RELEVANCE OF RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY, RITUAL, AND ADMINISTRATION —“the Germanic peoples did not bother to object to individual dogmas, because dogmatic orthodoxy was not central to their notion of religion. The second reason that the Germanization of Christianity is seldom acknowledged may be that now, when syncretic developments are usually associated with “developing nations,” there may exist at least a sub-conscious reluctance by Western Christians to accept the notion that their mainstream religious tradition is itself the result of a syncretic development which eventually became normative.”— I mean, having literate folk around to mediate between the aristocracy and the people, and to organize feast, festivals, and to educate each other, is not But we have to understand that people in the medieval period treated the church very much like we treat politicians.
Form: Quote Commentary
-
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
(FB 1544714814 Timestamp) —“Elites developed the industrial revolution, not peasants in the field or sitting around the table at dinner time. Like always elites create innovations and the masses follow along. They weren’t tricked into it, anymore than the elites were tricked into inventing things. It’s natural. The idea that there is some kind of intrinsic abuse of workers by the elites assumes “generational agency” on both parts to get to where we are that doesn’t exist….off the top of my head.”—Mike Harvey
-
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
(FB 1544759893 Timestamp) —“This process of accommodation resulted in the essential transformation of Christianity from a universal salvation religion to a Germanic, and eventually European, folk religion”—
-
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
(FB 1544759185 Timestamp) —“…in a recent article by John Van Engen.54 In it, he discusses the current debate among historians as to whether or not “medieval culture was essentially ‘Christian’ or ‘Catholic.’ “55 As Van Engen notes, some historians now claim that, outside of a minuscule clerical elite, “the great mass of medieval folk lived in a ‘folklore’ culture best likened to that observed by anthropologists in Third World countries.”56”—
-
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
(FB 1544758945 Timestamp) CHRISTIANITY IS NOT A PRODUCT OF ITS ORIGINS, BUT OF ITS TRANSFORMATION INTO GERMANICIZED FOLK RELIGION – RE-INSTITUTIONALIZED UNDER COLONIALISM. —-…”a concept is not best understood in light of its origins, but rather in light of the direction in which the tradition is moving. To take Christianity as a notorious example: I do not believe that the truth of Christianity will best be elucidated by a search for its origins, but rather by an observation of its development in tradition. This approach is a reversal of the assumption that has dominated Christian and much other religious scholarship for a very long time, an assumption characterized by the genetic fallacy: that the true meaning of a wordâor of an ideaâlies in its pristine state.48″—-
-
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
(FB 1544758682 Timestamp) —“Discoveries [were] made by church workers in regions and in a period where we would assume particularly deep and well-instructed religiosity: Saxony and the neighboring parts of Germany around 1600. Once out of the upper-class circles, however, and even in a time of bitter theological rivalries to concentrate the greatest possible attention on the faith, the vast bulk of the population are found to have been largely or totally ignorant of the simplest matters of doctrine, rarely or never attending church. . . . “They were given over to “soothsayers, cunning women, crystal-gazers, casters of spells, witches, and other practitioners of forbidden arts.”—tGoEMC
-
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
(FB 1544714814 Timestamp) —“Elites developed the industrial revolution, not peasants in the field or sitting around the table at dinner time. Like always elites create innovations and the masses follow along. They weren’t tricked into it, anymore than the elites were tricked into inventing things. It’s natural. The idea that there is some kind of intrinsic abuse of workers by the elites assumes “generational agency” on both parts to get to where we are that doesn’t exist….off the top of my head.”—Mike Harvey
-
Curt Doolittle shared a link.
(FB 1544800088 Timestamp) SOMEONE JUST SHARED THIS WITH ME: (pls take credit whomever did so. i can’t find it) And it’s the net of it. But it’s not just that women are unhappy and live with it. it’s that white men are unhappy and committing suicide in droves because of it. So it’s not just women who suffer – as usual, its men who DIE.
-
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
(FB 1544760164 Timestamp) THE INCLUSION OF ARYANISM (RELIGIOSITY OF WAR) INTO CHRISTIANITY
—“However, such reluctance among Christians may be somewhat ironic, since, were it not for its Germanization, Christianity might never have spread throughout Northern and Central Europe. One of the most obvious examples of the Christian accommodation of Germanic religiocultural attitudes may be found in the medieval Church’s attitude toward warfare. In a study of this subject, J. M. Wallace-Hadrill has noted: Germanic pagan peoples had a clear sense that war was a religious undertaking, in which the gods were interested. At once one thinks of Woden as a God peculiarly, though not exclusively, connected with warfare Pagan and pagan-transitional warfare, then, had its religious facet. Not surprisingly, Christian missionaries found this ineradicable, though not unadaptable to their own purposes. Christian vernacular makes considerable use of the terms of pagan warfare…. Why, then, did the men who converted the Anglo-Saxons differ so sharply [in their apparent indifference toward the warrior code] from Wulfila? The Anglo-Saxons were not less bellicose than the Goths. The answer may lie in the prudent spirit of accommodation shown by Gregory the Great. More than that, the pope was an ardent supporter of warfare to spread Christianity and convert the heathen, and this last is, I think, the more important consideration. So far from rejecting the Germanic war-ethos the pope means to harness it to his own ends, and the evidence is that he succeeded. The barbarians may fight to their heart’s content in causes blessed by the Church, and this is made clear not only in the matter of vocabulary. It is the position of the Church rather than of the Germans that had undergone modification. As Erdmann showed, the Church subsumed and did not reject the warlike moral qualities of its converts. Who shall say that St. Michael of later days was not Woden under fresh colors?71 The apotheosis of the Christian assimilation of the Germanic warrior code may be found in St. Bernard of Clairvaux’s “recruitment tract” for the military order of the Knights Templars, De laude novae militiae, in which the killing of non-Christians in battle is justified, if not encouraged.72″– -
Curt Doolittle updated his status.
(FB 1544805635 Timestamp) JEFFERSON ON RELIGON —“The religious views of Thomas Jefferson diverged widely from the orthodox Christianity of his era. Throughout his life, Jefferson was intensely interested in theology, religious studies, and morality. Jefferson was most comfortable with Deism, rational religion, and Unitarianism. He was sympathetic to and in general agreement with the moral precepts of Christianity.[4] He considered the teachings of Jesus as having “the most sublime and benevolent code of morals which has ever been offered to man,”[5] yet he held that the pure teachings of Jesus appeared to have been appropriated by some of Jesus’ early followers, resulting in a Bible that contained both “diamonds” of wisdom and the “dung” of ancient political agendas.[6] Still, together with James Madison, Jefferson carried on a long and successful campaign against state financial support of churches in Virginia. Also, it is Jefferson who coined the phrase “wall of separation between church and state” in his 1802 letter to the Danbury Baptists of Connecticut. During his 1800 campaign for the presidency, Jefferson even had to contend with critics who argued that he was unfit to hold office because of their discomfort with his “unorthodox” religious beliefs. In a letter to John Adams dated August 22, 1813, Jefferson named Joseph Priestly (an English Unitarian who moved to America) and Conyers Middleton (an English Deist) as his religious inspirations.[9] Jefferson used certain passages of the New Testament to compose The Life and Morals of Jesus of Nazareth (the “Jefferson Bible”), which excluded any miracles by Jesus and stressed his moral message. Though he often expressed his opposition to many practices of the clergy, and to many specific popular Christian doctrines of his day, Jefferson repeatedly expressed his admiration for Jesus as a moral teacher, and consistently referred to himself as a Christian (though following his own unique type of Christianity) throughout his life. Jefferson opposed Calvinism, Trinitarianism, and what he identified as Platonic elements in Christianity. In private letters Jefferson also described himself as subscribing to other certain philosophies, in addition to being a Christian. In these letters he described himself as also being an “Epicurean” (1819),[10] a “19th century materialist” (1820),[11] a “Unitarian by myself” (1825),[12] and “a sect by myself” (1819).[13] Upon the disestablishment of religion in Connecticut, he wrote to John Adams: “I join you, therefore, in sincere congratulations that this den of the priesthood is at length broken up, and that a Protestant Popedom is no longer to disgrace the American history and character.”—